Emotional Health and Wellbeing

Emotional Health and Wellbeing

Welcome to Babcock Prime’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing pages. In today’s complex world, promoting good mental health in our children and young people has never felt so important. Positive relationships, the capacity to feel joy and the ability to be productive in adult life are all dependent on good mental health. Teaching our pupils how to be resilient and cope with the challenges they will face is essential if they are to thrive. Many will experience mental distress at some point in their childhood, with a growing number experiencing significant mental health difficulties. Timely intervention from confident skilled staff in educational settings is a key part of making a difference in this area.

As you browse these pages you will find a variety of resources to help you build the capacity in your school, early years setting or college to meet the emotional health and wellbeing needs of your children, young people, staff and families. Whether you are looking for some facts and figures information about self- harm, advice about how to develop an Emotional Health and Wellbeing Coordinator role in your school or to book some intervention work for a recently bereaved child, you will find what you need here.

5 facts about children and young people’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing

Young people’s happiness is at its lowest since 2010 according to ongoing research into children’s self-reported wellbeing (The Children’s Society, 2017).

1 in 10 children and young people aged 5-16 years have a diagnosable mental health disorder (Mental Health Foundation, 2015). This figure rises to 1 in 5 young adults (Young Minds, 2018).

Almost 1 in 4 children and young people show some evidence of mental ill health (including anxiety and depression) (Young Minds, 2018).

1 in 12 young people deliberately self-harm at some point in their lives (Young Minds, 2018).

Many children and young people communicate their emotional difficulties through persistent, disruptive behaviours. Persistent, disruptive behaviour is the most common reason for exclusion in England: 36% of permanent and 28% of fixed term exclusions (Department of Education, 2018).

Children with higher levels of emotional, behavioural, social, and school wellbeing, on average, have higher levels of academic achievement and are more engaged in school, both concurrently and in later years.

Children with better emotional wellbeing make more progress in primary school and are more engaged in secondary school.